Funny Answering Machine

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When a character lives in a modern setting, how do you show the audience or reader how quirky he or she is? Make that character an entertaining answering machine note For those not familiar with them, they were devices that connected to a landline phone, and recorded a message for you if you weren't home, either digitally or on tape, depending on the time period. And they could be used to screen calls in the days before Caller ID. They've largely been replaced with voicemail. or voicemail message for callers to hear! They're also good for showing the audience a hint of the character's personality. Compare Voicemail Confusion.

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Anime & Manga

Darker Than Black uses November 11's answering machine in one episode, having him tell a joke while the person at the other end is waiting for the beep. It's used as an Orphaned Punchline, and surprisingly seems to be a bawdy joke as opposed to November 11's usual sense of humor.

Comic Books

The Casanova Wannabe in the German comic Rudi has one, where he's bringing a woman to orgasm. How the hell did he manage to make her agree with that?!

Comic Strips

Parodied in Calvin and Hobbes. Calvin once picked up the phone and said, "Hello, we are unable to come to the phone right now, so please leave a message at the sound of the 'click'." and hung up.

Candorville: Lemont's answering machine always identifies the caller, usually "Mom" or "creditor." To the latter, he tends to mention his lack of funds. To the former, he's painfully self-effacing and apologetic for not living up to her expectations.

One early Dilbert strip has him leaving a girl a message asking her out on a date. Her answering machine says "If you're calling to take me to Paris, press one. If you're offering to take me to a crappy movie, press 2."

Bringing the machine up to the shower to record Roger singing in the shower.

Recording himself singing "A million bottles of beer on the wall...", leaving his parents wondering why they have no messages again.

The original version of the strip had Jason informing callers they dialed the "Satan Hotline".

Informing the caller they've reached the "Jason Fox Hotline, your 24 hour source for all things Jason" and then a lengthy description of his day, leaving Roger wondering why everyone sounds so grouchy on the machine.

An early Frazz Sunday strip has Frazz and the kids recording a song with some nonsense instructions for the caller.

"Hi, this is Suzy. I'm not at home, but please leave a message at the tone... Unless you're Jon Arbuckle, in which case the machine will automatically hung up."

An episode of Garfield and Friends had a message where Jon was being assaulted by Garfield and Odie while recording.

An actual strip (April 27, 2008) has Liz call and hear him fighting with Garfield in the recording (and it's implied that he'd JUST been recording it a short while before). As in the The Kids in the Hall example, she likes it and says it's funny.

In Zits, Jeremy Duncan makes a message where he simply farts into the phone: "Leave a message at the sound of the 'frap'." And in an early strip, "You have reached the number you called. Blah, blah, blah. If you actually need further instructions, well, that's just pathetic."

In The Dinner Game, (French: Le Diner De Cons), François Pignon has such a message.

In How the Grinch Stole Christmas!, the Grinch sees he has no messages and checks his outgoing: "If you utter so much as one syllable I'll hunt you down and gut you like a fish!!!!! If you'd like to fax me, press the Star key!"

Hilariously subverted in L.A. Story, in which Steve Martin answers the phone in a pitch perfect parody of an answering machine message:

Harrison: Hi, this is Harrison. I'm home right now, so you can talk to me after the beep. *beep* Sara: (very confused) ...hello?

Meet the Fockers has Greg calling his parents and getting the machine, which includes the standard message and then his parents yelling about how to turn the recorder off.

Played with in MouseHunt, where Nathan Lane's character has an answering machine prompt that consists entirely of, "When ya hear the beep, start talkin'."

Swingers features a funny answering machine, even though the message is completely normal. It seems the main character has his machine to spout out encouragements to him, as after he checks it says, in its robotic voice, comments like "She's not worth it" and "There are other fish in the sea."

The Terminator. "Hi! [beat] Ha-ha, fooled you, you're talking to a machine!" The last time we hear this message, Sarah Connor really is talking to a machine as the Terminator has just killed her roommate who made the message.

The crafting of a funny message is the source of great angst in the short film "This Is John" by the Duplass Brothers.

Literature

The Discworld novel Sourcery has a fairly standard message. The funny bit is that they're in a fantasy universe and it's not a phone, it's a Benevolent Genie's magic lamp.

Do not put down the lamp because your custom is important to us. Please leave a wish after the tone and, very shortly, it will be our command. In the meantime, have a nice eternity.

Nina Tanleven: In The Ghost in the Third Row, when Nine finally reaches Chris on the phone, she gets the answering machine. It claims to be their cat, and at the end asks the caller to leave a message at the sound of the meow. Also if they have any spare mice. Then theres an actual meow instead of a beep.

The Plant That Ate Dirty Socks: When the family gets an answering machine in book 5, Norman and his friend Bob start calling from Bob's house and leaving silly messages, then rush back to hear themselves on playback. After their parents put a stop to this, Dad teaches Norman how to record an actual message so he won't use it as a toy anymore... only for Norman to secretly rerecord it, except this time he sings it to the tune of "Camptown Races". Mom and Dad aren't pleased, but at least one caller compliments them on having a song on the machine.

Live-Action TV

On Alice, Alice gets an answering machine and someone makes a death threat against her on it.

Bones 's voicemail reminds the audience that this is not Temperance Brennan, but a recording of her.

YO YO YO 1-4-8 3 TO THE 3 TO THE 6 TO THE 9, REPRESENTIN' THE ABQ, WADDUP, BI-ATCH?! Leave it at the tone.

One episode of Cheers involves Sam's message, which sounds like him answering the phone, then a long pause, followed by "Just kidding. You got my machine." Diane calls Sam before her wedding to Frasier, hoping Sam is on a plane on his way to stop the wedding. When she thinks he has answered, she hangs up in disgust without hearing the rest, and thus doesn't know that Sam is on his way.

Another episode's teaser plays Woody's outgoing message, which Sam says (in the message) is stupid. The caller is revealed to be Woody, who now agrees that the message is stupid.

In one episode of Chuck, Chuck calls Casey and gets the following message:

This is Casey. Hrmmm. [BEEP]

In Community, the end of one episode provides a little present for all the Kevins out there:

George Takei: Hi, Kevin can't come to the phone. He's on a spaceship with me, George Takei. Please leave a message.

One episode of Criminal Minds has a guy (played by Frankie Muniz) compulsively calling his girlfriend's cellphone, and getting the message "Hello, I cannot answer right now because I'm busy living my life!". He keeps getting increasingly exasperated that she doesn't answer, and a flashback reveals that he suggested the message to her (as he's some successful comic writer/artist). Then it turns out she was murdered a while ago, he has the phone (in silence) and his insistence on calling is part of the denial/psychosis he's suffering. He didn't kill her, mind you; he's hunting down the gang that did.

When Rachel and Phoebe were sharing an apartment, they made a couple of attempts to record a message with alternating words. Somehow, Rachel kept ending up with the "good" words.

One message said, "You've reached Monica and Chandler's. If you're hearing this message, we're probably screening." While it's playing, we see Chandler reading a newspaper. "Yeah, we are."

House at one time had a very convincing "this number has been disconnected" recording for his answering machine.

How I Met Your Mother plays with this trope a few times. On one occasion, Barney and Robin record a corny duet as part of a bet. On another, Lily starts talking to her dad, learns he wants $5,000 in bail, and starts pretending to be one of these.

On the other hand, The Defenders (2017) shows Jessica's answering machine message is her gruffly barking "Wrong number. *BEEP*"

A The Kids in the Hall sketch revolves around a couple trying to record their outgoing message. The wife wants a simple, straightforward message while the husband wants something clever. While attempting to record their message, they have an argument while the tape is still running. A friend calls in and hears their message, which contains the argument. The caller laughs and congratulates the couple on creating their funniest message yet.

In one episode of Mama's Family, Mama gets an answering machine and each person's attempt to record an outgoing message reflects their personality: Iola does it in a drab monotone, Naomi does it in a sexy, seductive voice with a kiss at the end (Mama: "It's supposed to be a phone message, not foreplay!"), Bubba shows off by doing it Elvis-style, and Vint just describes the machine on his message. They finally settle on Mama's short but not-so-sweet "It's your dime, spill it!"

"Hello. This is Adrian... Monk. Thank you for calling my new answering machine. When you hear the beep noise, please speak into the telephone receiver and leave a message, which I will play back and listen to later. This is the end of the message, and here is the beep I was talking about." [BEEP]

On My Name Is Earl, when Earl and Randy moved into an actual apartment, Randy bought an answering machine with a recording of a Mr. T impersonator.

Inverted with Gibbs on NCIS, reinforcing his nature as The Quiet One. (Of course, the fact that it's so terse and unfunny ends up making it hilarious.)

"Gibbs. Speak."

On One Day at a Time the family is going away for a Christmas vacation so they borrow an answering machine for the duration. The girls decide to record their greeting to the tune of "Silent Night."

Leave your number when you hear the bee-ee-eepU-unless you are a creep

Not always funny, but on The Rockford Files, Jim Rockford's message machine was the introduction to the episode, often leaving the audience with an idea of either the trouble Jim was up to or the personality of Jim's new client.

A Saturday Night Live skit featured a man distressed that his answering machine message made him sound effeminate. So he re-recorded it. . .only to sound even moreso. He proceeded to repeat his actions over and over again, only for the message to sound more and more stereotypically gay no matter how manly he tried to sound, including things he hadn't even said such as "whoo-hoo!" and "girlfriend".

Larry: [re-records his message, but forcing his voice to sound deep and rough] Hi, this is Larry Henderson! Leave a message! Thanks!

Larrys Message: Hi, this Lawrence H., Im not here. Why is your tired ass calling me, anyway? Oh, well! Leave a message, and it best not be shady! Thanks, girl!

Carrie Bradshaw's message in Sex and the City has variations of "Hi. I'm shoe shopping".

Sisters. After Teddy's (the second-oldest sister) husband is killed, we see her sitting alone in their bedroom, repeatedly listening to their answering machine message, which includes him mock-angrily demanding that callers leave them alone, since they're newlyweds.

The voicemail of Castiel: You have reached the voice mail of [Castiel: I dont understand. Why do you want me to say my name?] [sound of numbers being pressed] [beep]

Dean's message is a terse: "Leave your name, number and nightmare at the tone."

Dean has multiple phones so one of his messages is "this is Dean's other, other phone, so you must know what to do."

Likewise Bobby Singer has a number of phones so he can impersonate an FBI office or other authority for the Hunters. His actual number has a curt: "This is Bobby Singer's direct hotline. You should not have this number."

In a sketch on the The Tracey Ullman Show, Tracey played a single girl whose recorded calls all indicated that her answering machine message made her sound sick or depressed (one, a wrong number, referred her to a suicide hotline). In response Tracey hired a studio band and recorded an elaborate message to the tune of "Something's Coming" from West Side Story. When she came home the next day and eagerly prepared to listen to her messages, all she received was a long line of beeps, indicating that the callers had gotten fed up waiting for the song to end and hung up.

Will & Grace used to do these all the time. When the phone rang and they listened to one of them, Will said, "I hate us so much right now." Apparently they make them when drunk.

Music

When Iron Maiden re-released their singles, drummer Nicko McBrain had hilarious tracks commenting on the songs (among other things). At the end of each, he imitates an answering machine.

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Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! has the promise of this trope as a prize. If a contestant wins, they'll get radio personality Carl Kasell's voice on their home answering machine. What kinds of thing do they make him say? Well, find someone who knows someone who's won the game to find out.

Buns: "You have reached my video voice mail, please leave me a message. And Gumpy, if this is you, leave me a message like the last one, I will send you a reply that explodes on impact. I am not kidding."

Steroid: "Robert Gontarski is ummm... UNAVOIDABLE right now. Tell me who you are and what you want and maybe I put him in touch with you, maybe not."

Fox: You've reached Cynthia Guzzman. I'm kind of... -giggle- tied up at the moment, but leave me a message and I'll call you. If you would rather not hear from me, breathe heavily. Just once.

Fidel: How this thing work? Fidel no here now... OK, I am here now, but I no be here when you get message, because if I here, you no get message, you get Fidel... One thing for sure, Fidel like to kill. And Fidel like money.

Lammy's answering machine message in Um Jammer Lammy is so long that she has time to run down some flights of stairs, run back up to her apartment, turn off all of the appliances she had accidentally left on, give her stuffed panda a kiss, and race back out the door.

Richard Gray, of Grim Tales and Detectives United, is a ghost bound inside his own skull. (It Makes Sense in Context, at least as much as that concept ever could.) The skull sits on the inventory bar, and when he wants to say something, it lights up and shakes to prompt the player to click on it. However, clicking on it when it's not doing that may result in a supernatural version of this trope:

"Hello, Richard Gray here. I can't come out of the skull right now. Please call again later."

Marzipan's Answering Machine is mostly about the funny calls she gets, but some of her answering machine messages can be pretty unusual, too. Some examples:

Marzipan: Hi, this is Marzipan. I'm out doing some very important things, so please leave me a message, and if this is Strong Bad calling to prank call me, can you please do the one where I win the radio contest? 'Cause that one's my favorite. Okay. Bye. Marzipan: Hi guys! Leave me a message, and I'll leave you with an abstract thought. Is a penguin a bird or a duck?

The Doctor WhoScream of the Shalka webcast (now non-canon with the new series) revealed the Doctor (and robotMaster)'s answerphone message to end "we will get back to you before you call." Also, by the sound of it, the Master was somehow making the Doctor giggle while he recorded it...

SCP Foundation: SCP-361 is an Etruscan artifact resembling a divining liver. If you put an actual sheep liver on it you get the following message:

Welcome to HarusCo! Your sacrifice is very important to us! For Tinia the Thunderer, please perform a horizontal incision on the offering. For Aita of the Underworld, please perform a vertical incision. For Maris, lightly cover your offering with the ash of a dead warrior related to you by blood.

Grounder: The robot you have reached has been discomboobulated [sic], and the hedgehog you were chasing got away.

A recurring gag in Archer is that characters will call Archer and start talking only to realize that it's just one of his elaborate and obnoxious voice mail messages.

Reaches its peak in the Season 5 episode "The Rules of Extraction." Archer programs his voicemail to trigger a rave in the Tunt mansion, complete with laser-light show and a techno remix of "The mail box of A-A-Archer, A-A-Archer is full." Not even Krieger knows how he pulled that one off.

Joker: (laughs) Boy, did you get a wrong number. Leave your message at the sound of the shriek. Man's voice: No! Please! Don't! (shrieks)

In the second Family Guy Star Wars special, Luke (Chris) tries to call Han (Peter) to tell him that he's going to the Dagobah System.

Han: Hello? Luke: Alright, so I'm going to the Dagobah Sys— Han: I'm sorry, I can't hear you. Luke: (louder) I said I'm going to the Dagobah— Han: I'm sorry, but you're gonna have to speak up. Luke: (screaming) I said I'm going to the— Han: Haha! It's a machine!

In a 2-minute short for Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends, Bloo and the gang try to make one of these, but it fails when Madame Foster overloads the electricity before they could press the save button.

In the Rocko's Modern Life episode "Seat to Stardom," Heffer tries calling Rocko's house but gets his answering machine, which the outgoing message starts with Rocko saying "Hello?" as if he were really answering the phone. After a few seconds of silence, he says "This is Rocko," and goes into a typical answering machine greeting, fooling whoever is calling. Later, when Rocko tries calling Heffer back, Heffer intentionally does not answer, resulting in his answering machine to play an outgoing message: "At the sound of the tone, please leave a message, unless you're a Wedgie Boy and have no time for your friends."

One episode has Homer and Marge buying a book about trying to invoke this trope, and end up trying to record a message together while reading out of it. It sort of goes without saying, but it ends up being So Unfunny, It's Funny.

A season 2 episode has Homer calling Barney for bail, and initially gets an answering machine message sung to the tune of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony.

T.U.F.F. Puppy episode "Freaky Spy-Day" has Kitty's attempt at making an outgoing.

During the 1990s, when answering machines came down in price and became more common in American households, several companies released novelty answering machine greetings. Standard comedy skits and parodies of famous characters were used in greetings, in lieu of the standard, "Hello, you've reached Alice and Bob; we're not able to answer now, so please leave a message and we'll call back as soon as possible." Popular for a time, many people soon found the dull-but-tried-and-true greetings worked best and gave the most favorable impression.

In his column Hell and Back describing his slide into clinical depression after Hurricane Katrina, Chris Rose wrote:

I changed the message on my phone to say: "This is Chris Rose. I am emotionally unavailable at the moment. Please leave a message." I thought this was hilarious. Most of my friends picked it up as a classic cry for help.

Anyone who has worked in a call center likely has many stories of these. Remember when making your voicemail: random strangers asking for money will hear it.

Baseball great Will Clark had B.B. King's "The Thrill Is Gone" on his answering machine. (He was known as Will "The Thrill" Clark.)

Vincent Martella has gone on record as having recorded his family's answering machine message in character as Phineas Flynn, which has caused several sound only Double Takes.

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